On Sunday, I somehow managed to coax my friend and cousins to be models for the afternoon in a remote field not far from where I live. It was probably the lure of beautiful dresses from Belle & Bunty, sparkly jewels from Azendi London and masses of luscious pre-loved clothes from Once Worn Twice Loved that did it.

For sometime, I’ve been contemplating styling my own photoshoot, but honestly speaking, didn’t think I was capable. After reading an amazing book called ‘Mastering Fashion Styling’ by Jo Dingemans and furiously talking the ear of my poor husband off, it started to feel like I could possibly make something happen.

The idea of An Indian Summer immediately came to mind….since our summers here in England are mostly late, it seemed like the perfect theme. I sought out a location..I have a thing for cornfields (we had family photos taken a few years ago and I insisted some of them were taken in a cornfield and I’m glad I did because they turned out beautifully!), pulled our house apart looking for props (big thanks to my little girl for the loan of the dreamcatcher) then pulled my VW Beetle out of the garage as the biggest prop of them all and the icing on the cake.

I had visions in my head of how I wanted the photos to look. I had an idea of which outfits would look good together and who would look good in what but I didn’t write any of it down. For me, this was my biggest learning curve (I won’t say mistake because it was a major lesson). I should have written everything down, the photo ideas, the outfits for the models….because when it came down to it, and I was taking the photographs, it all went ‘poop!’ and vanished from my head. That was the emotion overriding my head. I was worrying too much about things I didn’t need to worry about (mostly the welfare of my models). The weather also threw me. The forecast had been good all week for that particular day and then of course, when Sunday came around, the sky was grey and threatening and as we left home, the rain came. It did redeem itself by 5pm and the sun showed its cheeky little self in all its glory, hence the blue sky in the later photos, which, by the way, are in the order they were taken.

In a photoshoot, as we all probably know, the following people are necessary : models, a photographer, a stylist, a stylists assistant, a make up artist and a hair stylist and thats a skeleton staff at the very least. I did all of these jobs, so therefore areas I wanted to focus on suffered. I couldn’t put everything I wanted to into styling, because I had so many other things to think about and so, already, I have been making notes (WRITE IT DOWN, VICTORIA) about what I will do next time. And there will most definitely be a next time, because I’m quite proud of these photos and the styling. Some of them are slightly blurry, the colour might not be to everyones liking on some of them, no doubt I will be criticized somewhere down the line but its the first time I’ve done this, put myself out there and tried to make something happen for myself.

The only way to learn, sometimes, is to take the plunge (my cousin Katy’s wise words) and I did. I learned so much from this afternoon jaunt by a lake and I am so grateful to everyone who supported and continues to support me in following my dream to become an editorial stylist.

Thank you to my beautiful cousins Lucy & Katy and my beautiful friend Charlotte for being models for the afternoon – you did me proud! Thank you to Frank & Jackie for the use of your beautiful haven ; thank you to my husband for all your brainwaves in helping things run easily and smoothly and for your constant support in helping me realise my big dream ; thank you to Belle & Bunty for your incredibly beautiful clothes ; thank you to Azendi for so kindly providing so many sparkly pieces of jewellery and thank you to Nicola & Lisa of Once Worn Twice Loved for the use of so much of your stock!

And thank YOU all for visiting my blog…I never dreamed that things would go as far as they’ve come (I say that because I’m lucky enough to be going to London Fashion Week next week because that is unreal to me!) and I hope you continue to want to come back to join me on this fashion adventure!

Wow V!!! So very well done! What an amazing thing to do off your own back and sounds like you learnt so much from it too. The photography is really good as is the styling so you should be very proud of yourself! xxx